Everyday thoughts of the girl next door.

Because I am not a slut

Being a woman in India is hard. Being a woman who wears whatever she wants is harder. God forbid you are a woman who wears what she wants AND goes where she wants all by herself. You are surely a SLUT! Yes, that is what most modern women who speak their mind and wear what they want are called. And that is why I get the motivation behind slutwalk. But I have a problem with it.

If the idea of slutwalk is a march where women will ” dress in everyday wear (to symbolize ordinary women that are sexually assaulted during everyday activities”, then all I have to do is to walk down to the grocer or to the bus stop dressed in my regular clothes. Irrespective of whether I am wearing a salwar kameez, a sari, jeans, mini skirt or a burkha, I know there will be hoots and catcalls as I walk. I know there will be people winking suggestively, and trying to say things to me. So what I wear does not really protect me from being assaulted, and my talking about the assault is only going to make men term me a slut for having invited the assault.

But why should the woman call herself a slut? I am no prude but that word bothers me. Even if sarcastically, I don’t want to call myself a slut, because sarcasm is lost out on a lot of people, and they take it literally and my calling myself one will only encourage such people to behave worse with women. And that is the problem I have with Slutwalk. Nuances and sarcasm are not well understood by most men of the ogling and sexual harassment variety, and if they take the Slutwalk literally, it gives them more opportunity to do more of the same, i.e., continue to degrade women in public. Would that not defeat the purpose of the walk?

I agree with you – why would women want to ‘reclaim’ the word slut as their own? The word is so deeply rooted in the patriarchal view of women’s sexuality that it is beyond redemption…Wouldn’t it be better if we came up with out own term that defines our sexuality? Why stick to male terms?

Do you think men in India lack opportunities to degrade women in public? For years, we focused on not being percieved as sluts to no avail. I think it might be time to do the opposite, and stop being embarassed to be thought of as sluts. The way men in India go on, they think of us as sluts anyway.

PS: I know a barrage of Indian men are going to stand up and say don’t generalise but sorry, from my own experience, this is how the vast majority behave and we are lucky to be surrounded by a “few good men”.

I think regardless of wht we do or don’t most men are going to degrade women in public. I have a feeling they think all women who walk on the street do so because they want to be humiliated/fondled etc. And the more you yell at them the more encouraged they feel! But I really don’t think this walk is going to have any impact whatsoever. Throwing these men in prison or capital punishment, on the other hand, will have loads of impact.